Today's visit was to Camp Kanembwa, which formerly hosted thousands of refugees and now hosts only those who are on their way to the US and other countries for resettlement. Most families are only at Kanembwa for a couple of months. We conducted several interviews with those who had been approved to resettle in the US, but whose cases had been delayed for a year or longer. One woman, Chantal, is now a single mother of four - her husband passed away after they were moved to Kanembwa from another camp. Another man, Bahati, has been waiting since March 2007 with no word on his case. I wanted to hear their thoughts and fears and expectations on coming to the US, but to them that life is still too far away to even consider, though they had a few questions about education for themselves and their children. My sense is that they feared that somehow their cases would be denied and they would have little option(which, according to my understanding of the process, would be very unlikely to occur at this point, but it's hard to explain that to them). I went to the camp with specific ideas of what I would hear today- though I really did want to hear the truth, I expected good or concise sound bites from those whose future was settled. What I got was the truth, which is rarely as simple or straightforward as we'd like it to be. Ideally, everyone could return to a safe and familiar home, and not have to struggle against a new language and culture, but in our broken world we know that will not happen. Like those who continue to live at Kanembwa, our hope must be in one greater than ourselves....
Thanks for all of your comments and encouragement- it's good to know you're reading this! I'll probably be internet-silent til next Tuesday, but will post more then!!